Israeli President Shimon Peres on Saturday gave Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a two-week extension to form a coalition government, after he failed to build a broad coalition including ultra-orthodox parties.
Netanyahu placed the blame for his failure to form a government on Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid and Bayit Yehudi chairman Naftali Bennett.
Speaking with President Peres at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said : “The reason there is no coalition so far is because there are boycotts of an entire public in the State of Israel and that does not match my views,” Netanyahu stated, sitting across from Peres in the press room at the President’s Residence in the capital.
“When products made by settlers in Judea and Samaria are boycotted, we justly protest, and the people who need to understand this more than anyone is the settlers who are subjected to daily boycotts,” he said, in a reference to Bennett’s Jewish Home nationalist party.
Lapid explicitly stated for the first time Saturday night that he would not sit in the same coalition as ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism, while Bayit Yehudi stuck to its commitment to enter a government only if Yesh Atid joins as well.
If Netanyahu fails to reach a government in two weeks, Yair Lapid who heads the country’s second largest party, could be offered the chance to form the coalition, or new elections could be held.
Netanyahu said he believes the parties will come to an understanding about the draft exemptions, and that ultra-orthodox Jewish Israelis will eventually accept them.